


11 Things Peter Hates About Sam, and 1 Thing He Hates That He L(oves)ikes

by frozensight



Series: Who needs affection when I have blind hatred? [1]
Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1663529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozensight/pseuds/frozensight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are lots of things about Sam Alexander that get Peter's goat, eleven that are particularly offensive, but there's only one thing that he is loath to admit to actually liking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	11 Things Peter Hates About Sam, and 1 Thing He Hates That He L(oves)ikes

**Author's Note:**

> Idea initially sprouted from watching 10 Things I Hate About You with my friend Amy, and then it became something else entirely.

**1\. the way he has to be right all the time**

It goes the same way every time Sam starts an argument with him.

“Yeah, well, I thought of it first.”

“No, you didn’t, Sam.”

“How would you know? You can’t read minds!” Sam pauses, eyes narrowing at Peter. “Can you?”

Peter rolls his eyes, “No, Sam, I can’t; even if I could I would know you’re _lying_. If you had thought of it before me, you would have done it already.”

“You don’t know that! I could’ve been biding my time!”

From behind them, Ava snorts. “You? Bide time? What universe are you living in, Buckethead? A dog begging for a bone has more patience than you.”

“I am _not_ a dog!”

“Sure could’ve fooled me, _Buckethead_.”

Sam scowls, his nova force powering up around his fists. “I’ll show you guys; this was _my_ plan!”

Then he flies off without another word, and Peter sighs as he faces the rest of the team. “Let’s go after him and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“You say that like that’s _possible_.”

Peter doesn’t reply to Ava, but secretly, he agrees.

 

**2\. the way he sucks up to Aunt May**

If Coulson didn’t threaten Peter with detention, he would’ve boycotted team dinner night months ago. As it is, once a week he has to put up with his teammates crowding his house and eating all of their food. Aunt May doesn’t mind, which bothers Peter more than he thinks it should. He likes that she loves his friends, but sometimes he wishes she would get as annoyed by them as he does. The worst offender is Sam, by far.

“These mashed potatoes are _great_ , Aunt May!” “This is the best meatloaf I’ve ever had!” “How do you get these vegetables so perfect?” “Don’t worry about the dishes; I’ll get them for you!”

There’s more, but if Peter keeps thinking about it, he might throw up.

Sam may have explained why he acts like that towards Aunt May, and Peter gets it—he really does because he misses Uncle Ben all the time and it’s not like he even knows what Sam’s actual situation is. He also can’t help but feel possessive about the way Sam acts towards her because she’s been Peter’s only family for so long.

It’s childish, but hey, they’re still in high school for crying out loud.

 

**3\. the way he beats him at video games**

His favorite tactic is to fake being bad and then come back just when Peter thinks he’s winning and beat the crap out of him. It’s aggravating in and of itself, but is worsened by Sam _gloating_ like an _asshole_ about it.

The only reason he keeps playing video games with him is because Danny sucks at them and Luke keeps breaking his controllers when he loses—which is often enough to put a dent in Peter’s wallet. Ava flat out refuses every time he asks, so Peter is stuck playing with Sam.

He wins every once in awhile, but it’s always ruined by Sam going, “I _let_ you win.”

In which case, refer back to reason one for more clarification.

 

**4\. the way he brags about living in space**

Ever since their little trip with the Guardians of the Galaxy and Sam’s fake exit from the team—which still burns Peter a little, though overall he’s glad Sam decided to stay—Peter begins to take notice of just how often Sam mentions his time in space.

Fun fact: it’s a lot.

He honestly doesn’t know how he missed it before. He clearly had been incredibly distracted or absentminded not to hear him going on and on about saving the galaxy from Phalanx or from some weird bugs or how they helped the Kree Empire—yes the whole damn empire!—or how Groot is apparently some kind of ent royalty? The stories are limitless and Peter has never wished for a mute button more.

Peter yearns for the days he tuned the stories out.

 

**5\. the way he acts like he and MJ have been friends forever**

“Yeah, uh-huh, okay, I’ll text you the deets later. Mmhmm, talk to ya later, MJ!” Sam hangs up his phone and grins over at Peter. “That was MJ.”

“I figured,” Peter replies, his jaw almost too tense to pronounce words properly.

“She wanted to know if I was free later so I could go see a movie with her.”

Peter worries for his teeth as he grinds out a response. “Like a date?”

Sam makes a face at him. “Ew gross, no. MJ is like a sister, dude. Plus I think Harry and Danny are coming too?” He smirks, and Peter’s stomach tightens. “Who knows Webhead, she might invite you along too.”

He walks off down the S.H.I.E.L.D. tricarrier’s hallway, whistling, while Peter remains where he is, trying to restrain himself from punching the nearest wall.

Naturally a few seconds later he _does_ get a text from MJ that reads, ‘ _Hey Pete, wanna go to the movies with me and Sam tonight?_ ’

It’s with perhaps a little more vehemence than necessary that Peter types out an affirmative reply before he pulls his mask on over his face and makes for the nearest exit. He hopes that there’s some small time supervillain causing havoc because Peter needs to let off some steam before tonight.

 

**6\. the way he calls him “webs” / “webhead”**

“Hey Webs!” “Watch it, Webhead!” “Look out, Charlotte’s _Web_ , they’re right behind you!”

There are days Peter wants to yell back that his name is _Spider-Man_ dangit, and other days where all he wants to do is web Sam’s mouth shut in addition to webbing an actual bucket on his head.

But he can’t get mad at Sam when the whole team calls him by those nicknames now; doesn’t mean he can’t be mad at him for _starting_ the damn trend.

 

**7\. the way he blabs vital info during battles**

The villain of the day is the Big Wheel, who sounds completely innocuous and simpler to beat than say, Batroc or the Trapster, but for a man in a giant metal hamster wheel, he manages to put up quite a fight.

Currently Luke has him stalling, gears churning to run him over, but he’s not codename Powerman for nothing. Peter is about to tell the rest of the team to hit the center with all they have to take out what he can only assume is the engine, when Sam pauses right above Luke, floating midair.

“You know,” Sam begins and Peter places his head into his hands preemptively, “If he wasn’t so stupid, he’d think to just hit reverse.”

There are a few seconds of radio silence between them until the Big Wheel’s engines make a revving sound, and all the sudden it’s moving backwards into a building.

“ _Way to go, Nova_!” shouts Peter, with annoyed grumbles coming from Luke and Ava.

It takes them an extra twenty minutes to take down the Big Wheel after that, and Peter feels like he’ll never get the tire treads out of his suit.

 

**8\. the way he acts like the better son/friend**

Before becoming Spider-Man, Peter likes to think he had a pretty decent memory for things, but since becoming the ‘menace of New York City’ he’s had more and more trouble remembering the small things. Sure, he gets birthdays and anniversaries and holidays, but he sometimes forgets the eggs or the cake or the dry cleaning. He will be fifteen minutes late to a night in with Harry or completely and accidentally ditch a trip to the mall with MJ.

Sam, however, is surprisingly punctual for someone who doesn’t always seem to know what all the names of the states are, and for a while apparently has lived under the assumption that Mount Kilimanjaro was in the Himalayas.

Just as Peter goes to apologize for forgetting to pick something up for Aunt May, Sam waltzes in with whatever it was. Peter is late for something? Sam’s already there and has texted him, asking where he is.

The last straw is when Aunt May throws out the off hand comment: “Peter, you should really try to be more like Sam. He’s very punctual for someone his age.”

Sam beams at him, and Peter keeps a firm lid on his anger until the next team training session.

Thankfully, no one has any problems of the ‘everyone against Nova’ scenario Peter has concocted for that day’s exercise. Well, except Sam himself, of course.

 

**9\. the way he makes everything a competition**

“I bet you can’t get to Central Park from here as fast as I can.”

Peter sighs as he scans the skyline for any obvious signs of trouble from the rooftop he and Sam are sitting on. “That’s a fair bet seeing as you fly.”

“True.” Sam grins and Peter gets the urge to push him off the roof, for all the good it would do since Sam floats. “How about we see who can eat more slices of pizza later?”

“Why? Do you wanna throw up all over my living room?”

Sam makes a face. “Who said anything about throwing up? I didn’t say it’d be a race.”

“No, just a competition.”

“Of course.”

“But _why_?”

“Because it’s _fun_ ; god, Parker, why not?”

“Because there’s no point?”

“Who said there has to be one?”

Before Peter can reply, there’s an explosion a few blocks away, and the conversation gets cut short. He calls in for the rest of the team to meet them there, but before he can ask Sam for Nova to give him a lift, the boy is already gone.

“Race ya, Webhead!”

Some days…Some days Peter Parker wants to scream.

 

**10\. the way he can’t take anything seriously**

“Sam...what are you doing?”

“What does it look like, Parker?” comes Sam’s voice from inside the structure composed of blankets and pillows from around Peter’s house. He distinctly notices that his comforter is the roof of it all.

“It _looks_ like you built a fort in the middle of my living room.”

“Congratulations, you have eyes, Webs.”

“Sam?”

“Yes, Parker?”

“Why did you build a fort in the middle of my living room?”

Sam pokes his head out from what Peter can only assume to be the entrance. “You’ve seen the tricarrier; there are barely enough blankets and pillows for everyone to have a decent night’s sleep. Obviously this is the best place to build a fort.”

“Okay, that explains why _here_ , but not _why_ why.”

“Danny said a new environment might help me study better.”

“I...don’t think this is what he meant, Sam.”

“ _I don’t think that’s what he meant, Sam_ ,” mimics Sam, his hand sticking out to help, and Peter rolls his eyes. “Uh, I’m pretty sure ninety-nine percent of the crap Danny says is up to personal interpretation, so this is mine and you can either get lost or come in here and help me study for geometrical.”

“Geometry.”

“ _What. Ever_.” Sam retreats into the fort again, and Peter stands there for awhile, wondering how on Earth Sam has even made it to high school. His ponderings of whether Sam is actually some S.H.I.E.L.D. experiment gone wrong is interrupted when Sam calls out, “Get your ass in the fort already, Parker, these squares aren’t going to tangent themselves!”

Peter groans, but gets down on his knees so he can enter the fort.

“I don’t even want to go into how incorrect that statement was.”

**11\. the way he documents all of Peter’s failures on his phone**

Peter comes around to the sound of Sam’s laughter and a camera shutter—individually, fairly harmless, but together a sign of great misfortune.

“I can’t _believe_ this happened!” Sam’s voice is cracking with laughter, and if Peter’s head didn’t hurt so much, he’d probably curl in on himself and try to dissolve into the concrete beneath him. “I just wish I could show these to MJ; she’d laugh her _ass_ off!”

Days like these makes it hard to remember why one gets out of bed and put on a superhero costume to fight crime—especially when that crime has the magical power (for some _awful_ reason) to control clothing and used it to pull said superhero’s pants down so that said superhero fell down and hit his head against the wall so hard that he passed out with his pants down around his ankles.

He pulls his pants up without opening his eyes and trying not to think about how that is now the second opportunity Sam has had to photograph his ass on his stupid phone.

 

**1\. Sam**

All those things annoy the crap out of Peter, yes, but when it comes down to it—when it boils down the bottom of the pot—it turns out, it doesn’t matter.

Sam can be obnoxious and always have to be right or make everything a competition, but he does occasionally have very valid points— _occasionally—_ and usually he at least comes up with _fun_ competitions, though ultimately pointless.

He may seem like a suck up to Aunt May or seem to outshine Peter, however, he doesn’t gloat about that, he just seems to genuinely care. If there’s one thing that can be said about Sam, it’s that family and friends mean a lot to him, no matter what he tries to sell you with the way he makes fun of everyone—except Aunt May, he’s _always_ nice to Aunt May.

Sure he wins at video games constantly and used to live in outer space, but the first comes with a gratuitous amount of practice and the other is downright _awesome_. MJ likes him and he has an apparent inability to take things seriously, but MJ still likes Peter and he can’t exactly claim to be the most stoic of superheroes, not even among their own team.

He blabs key strategies during battles and calls Peter stupid nicknames. He also cleans up his messes during fights and lets the team call him stupid nicknames right back. Sam’s diligent in a fight, always making sure he has everyone else’s back, and when he doesn’t, he does his best to make up for it.

(Perhaps the only thing Peter could live without would be the documentation of all of his worst moments that Sam apparently has an album on his phone for.)

And yet, if he didn’t do any of these things—even the really annoying ones—then he wouldn’t be Sam Alexander, the boy that Peter may or may not more than like, and if Peter’s honest with himself, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Even if it drives him crazy-town banana pants.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel from Sam's POV is already in progress.


End file.
